


Dismantled Almosts

by yourinsomnia



Category: Kill Your Darlings (2013)
Genre: Drug Abuse, M/M, Original Female Character - Freeform, UST, a scene that never was, first person POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 06:52:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2803520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourinsomnia/pseuds/yourinsomnia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>William, Jack, Lucien, Edie, and Allen go out for a night of drinks. Nothing happens. No, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dismantled Almosts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariad/gifts).



> Dear Yuuhy, I hope you will forgive me for taking liberties with the prompt and introducing an original female character. I thought she might provide a nice foil to Edie and she was after all a prominent figure in the Beat Generation circles (IRL Joan Vollmer was Edie’s roommate and later William’s wife). Also, I'm aware that referencing Anne Sexton is anachronistic as she came into Beat scene much later but I thought her poetry suits the mood of the movie.
> 
> The title is from a quote by Anne Sexton -- “I am a collection of dismantled almosts.”

_William_

It was unusual to see Jack bring Edie to one of their group outings and his solemn expression hinted that he wasn't entirely happy about it. He was nursing a snifter of brandy, his gaze fixed on the bar's window. The window was dotted with raindrops; street lights a blur from the inside. 

Edie tapped her fingers against the wooden table where everyone was seated. Her polite smile was a sure sign of unadulterated boredom. 

"My friend is coming," she said, looking at no one in particular. 

"A lady friend?" Ginsberg inquired almost eagerly, making up, perhaps, for everyone's mild disinterest.

Eddie nodded. "She's a hoot. I met her at this West End joint. She was reciting Anne Sexton loudly to a bunch of drunk boys. They were enthralled. Though mostly by her low-cut dress, I imagine." As she finished her voice almost ebbed into sadness, as though that’s not what she had wanted to say at all. 

Jack snapped to attention. "Wait, are you saying that she’s really good looking?" 

"She's nice, is what I am saying," Edie replied, on edge, always on edge when Jack was involved but also resigned and dull like the smooth surface of the ice in Jack's glass. 

Then she looked at me. "Bill, you are not seeing anyone right now, are you?"

Though I’d been watching her closely, being abruptly addressed by her caught me off guard. Something about Edie’s presence was magnetic, pulling me towards her. More so than Lu, whose strong energy was a ticking bomb that you wanted to get away from. Unless, of course, you were Allen Ginsberg. 

"Don't tell me," I replied after some time, "that your question has a direct connection to this friend of yours.”

Edie laughed in response and stole Jack’s drink before he'd a chance to finish the last of it. 

My sobriety, my consciousness was keen. I was too unaltered for this ordeal but there was nothing to be done about it. Ginsberg had finished off the last joint before we stepped into the bar and Jack was holding his bennies hostage, doubtlessly too embarrassed to release them while Edie was still sober and watching us. 

"Who is Anne Sexton?" Lu asked, slinging a cigarette from his pocket. 

Edie paused and then started speaking, her voice rising above the raucous laughter of the other patrons. 

_“All day I've built_  
_a lifetime and now_  
_the sun sinks to_  
_undo it. ”_

Short, seemingly nothing spectacular, and yet the despair seeped through and we sat silent for a minute, engulfed by it. 

“She’s published then?” Lu finally asked, bringing the cigarette to his lips and prompting Ginsberg to light it. 

“Yes,” Edie replied. “In the New Yorker, I believe. Why? Does it matter?”

“Does it matter? Should it matter? Ah yes, good questions.” Lu asked and puffed out a thick cloud of smoke that inexplicably drifted towards Ginsberg. 

“I see _someone’s_ feeling rather accomplished about a juvenile prank,” I said, my voice finding the words before I had a chance to process them. 

When I did process them I realized that while I had enjoyed the library heist I was really not enjoying the newfound layer of arrogance it had given Lu. 

“A juvenile prank that could have landed you in jail,” Edie remarked. 

“Darling, aren’t you just mad you weren’t a part of it?” Jack teased and for one illusory instant you could pretend there was no malice in his words. 

Edie fixed him with a cool glare and said nothing and I admired her with an intensity I could not explain.

It was only with half a mind that I registered someone coming up to our table moments after. 

“Guys, meet Joan Vollmer,” Edie announced, relieved at the diversion. I re-directed my gaze towards the woman she’d introduced. She had black hair and burning eyes -- instinctively I already felt like she belonged with us and made room for her by my side. 

_Jack_

I had no idea what Edie meant by “nice” but this woman, Joan Vollmer, seemed like a far cry from anything nice. She talked too much, laughed too much, and drank too much, I concluded as I watched her order another stinger. 

We’d relocated to a different bar, just down the street from where we were before, though why remained a mystery to me. The place was crowded and the music was so loud that my head was throbbing. 

Joan was leaning close to me, the cuff of her silk blouse momentarily brushing up against my hands. 

“Joan attends Barnard,” Edie said, trying for a semblance of conversation.

“Lovely, don’t even start. Everything about Barnard is a bore,” Joan said but didn’t move away from me. 

“Everything about everything is a bore,” Lucien drawled out. 

“Yes. That’s why there is dancing,” Joan said. “The only thing keeping death-by-boredom at bay.” She shoved her half-finished drink into my hand and then led Edie away to the floor where a few semi-drunk couples were indulging in messy swing dancing.

“Is it time for our coffee yet?” Bill asked gravely at my side. That elicited a smile from me. I was surprised he had lasted this long without drugs. 

“Yes, but not until we get out of here. I’m suffocating,” I replied. 

Lucien was watching the girls dance. Ginsberg was watching the girls dance too, but mostly he was watching Lucien. 

Sometimes I wished they would just fuck and spare us the tragedy that loomed in the distance as sure as an oncoming storm. But then, it seemed to me that it was not exactly Lucien’s style to engage in anything as simple as the art of fucking. 

“What do we do about them?” Bill nodded to the girls. 

“Leave them,” I proposed, completely unconvinced that we could actually do so. 

_Lucien_

When Edie excused herself to the bathroom, Jack popped a second round of bennies into everyone’s mugs of tepid coffee. We had already swallowed one pill each earlier, while the girls were in the kitchen making coffee. Joan had lured us to her place, which was not far from where we had been drinking, insisting that she had perfectly acceptable coffee and more than acceptable music.

We had to climb three flights of dingy stairs to a flat she shared with a girl who looked about as attractive as a beat up street cat and who slammed the door to her room when she saw our gang. “Don’t mind her,” Joan explained. “She’s an utter snob. I need a new roommate.” 

We situated ourselves on the couch and the floor of the living room, which was overflowing with books and papers. The pervasiveness of a gaudy shade of red in the curtains, the throwers and other decorative items scattered about the apartment made me want to fling myself out of the window. 

The only thing keeping me still was the hypnotic turbulence of Gillespie’s notes. At least that part was true -- the music was acceptable. 

“Is this?” Joan asked, swirling the black liquid in her cup. 

“Drugs. Don’t do’em.” Billy said, swallowing his dose of spiked coffee in one labored gulp. 

In answer to Bill’s challenge, Joan tipped her glass and finished her own dose. 

“How many did you have before?” She asked. 

“Not nearly enough,” Bill replied, eyeing Jack’s coat from which Jack had summoned the pills like a magician. 

Bill, being the junkiest of us all, was wrong. It was enough. A thundering sensation passed through my body and I felt instantly alert, focused. Though I could only focus on one thing at a time. Ginsy was on the floor, musing into his cup, but he looked up when he felt my gaze. He’d been staring at me incessantly ever since the blowjob incident in the library. 

I tilted my head at him to see if his hair would look different from a new perspective. But of course it didn’t. It was just the same unruly mop of curls that held the secrets of the impressionable, virgin poet Allen Ginsberg. If only he knew how many epithets I had in store for him, he would fall for me ten times as hard. I bit my lip to stop myself from smiling. The way Ginsy’s eyes darted to my lips as I performed the gesture did not escape my notice. 

“Intelligence is worse than sin, it corrupts your mind from the inside.” 

“Lofty words, what does sin actually have to do with the mind? Or the body for that matter?” 

I made an effort to tune into a three way conversation between Jack, Joan, and Billy but it was the same drivel I’d been subjected to on the way to the apartment. 

I turned to Edie, who was sitting by my side and looking deadly bored. 

I leaned into her, placing my head on her shoulders, and felt her fingers, light as clouds, run through my hair. 

_Edie_

Lucien’s hair was soft, like a child’s. There were so many things about him that made me see him as a child--his laugh, his impulses, the way he discarded people when he grew bored of them as though they were toys. Perhaps that was the strange quality about him that attracted everyone -- they wanted to be near him so that they could protect him, watch over him. 

Jack was talking to Joan very loudly. It was rare to see him talk so much. Bill was animated too, a direct contrast to his usual aloofness, his usual state of not being entirely there. They were all high, though the jury was still out on Joan, because the manic gleam in her eyes was the same one I’ve seen several times before. 

Jack was still talking to Joan about things that did not matter. Jack loved me, I knew it, except sometimes I did not know it. Jack hadn’t touched me once since we got here. 

Jack, Jack, Jack. The name had turned to poison on my lips. 

_Allen_

I unbuttoned my shirt almost to the last button. It was so hard to breathe. The air inside the room was stale and thick with cigarette smoke. 

“More wine?” Joan offered, perhaps as a way to ease my visible discomfort, but I refused and so she turned to everyone else instead. I could see stains on the wine glass, even from where I was sitting, but it didn’t seem like Edie minded because she just took the glass from Joan’s hands and drank its contents in less than three seconds. 

My heart was beating erratically and I considered taking off my shirt completely. Just the thought of Lucien watching me do it sent a flush up my cheeks. I stole another glance at Lucien (there had been too many, I knew, and I suspected everyone else saw and knew too). I fixed my attention on the cigarette he was smoking. His long, elegant fingers were almost unbearably erotic to me. Everything was at once erotic and unbearable about Lucien. 

I managed to get up somehow and make my way to the window. Propping it open, I discovered a fire escape, as I’d expected, and climbed out to place myself at the very edge, slipping my legs through the bars and letting my feet dangle in the air. It was the deep of the night, post-rain, the air refreshing and stimulating. 

“Not cold, are we?” Lucien’s throaty voice (unmistakable, always) floated out from inside of the room. 

I turned to look at him and saw that he was standing by the window, though still inside the room, the light illuminating him from behind like a halo. He seemed young in that moment, and completely incorruptible, as though no chaos or degradation could ever reach his eyes. 

“It’s great out here, actually,” I said and stretched out my hand. He took it without a moment’s hesitation and climbed out to sit beside me. 

I was keenly aware of the heat from his thigh as it connected with mine, and that the collar of his white button-down was tentatively loose. 

“Did you come out here to howl at the moon?” Lucien asked. 

“Where is the moon?” I asked.

“That a way,” he replied, pointing his finger into blackness. “Just because you can’t see it, Ginsy, doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

“That is going to sound embarrassingly unprofound once you sober up,” I said. 

He laughed, a short dying laugh. He was beginning to shiver. 

I wanted to wrap my hands around him, I wanted to...

First thought, best thought…I thought, but did not say, and my hand reached out to take hold of his face.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you [caminante](http://archiveofourown.org/users/caminante) and [melusinahp](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Melusinahp/pseuds/Melusinahp) for last-minute advice and beta ♥.


End file.
